language before my mother. But I loved Tom for it.

However, I did not sleep that night. Next morning Tom's Aunt Elizabeth
apologized, and for Back Bay was really unbending.

Some days later we returned to New York, and I thought my troubles were
over for a time. But the first night Tom came home full of excitement.
He had been appointed to the diplomatic corps, and we were to sail for
England within a month!

The news struck chill terror to my heart. With so much still to learn
in my native America, what on earth should I do in English society?




II.

More than two months passed after the night my husband announced his
foreign appointment before we sailed for England.

I planned to study and to have long talks with him about the customs of
fashionable and diplomatic Europe, but alas! I reckoned without the
friends and pretended friends who claim the time of a man of Tom's
importance. Besides, he and I had so many other things to discuss.

So the sailing time approached, and then he announced that we were to be
presented at court! I was thrilled half with fear and half with joy.

I remembered from my reading of history that some of England's kings had